The article incorrectly represented the Paul Ryan budget as “budget cuts for the poor” instead of the true facts, which are that the Ryan budget slows the rate of growth of federal programs for the poor, which today exceeds 7 percent annually in many programs, to the rate of inflation, plus 1 or 2 percent depending on the program. Without common sense spending management of any budget process, the end result is deficit spending, higher taxation, the lowering of the purchasing power of the dollar and possible financial collapse that will add to the ranks of the poor and shrink the middle class which is happening right now.

On another note of importance — the right to life. President Barack Obama’s best-known and most controversial votes during his time in the Illinois Senate were the ones he cast against the Infant Born Alive Protection Act, which would have mandated care for children who were delivered after an unsuccessful late-term abortion.

It is stunning to me that a publication representing the teaching of Catholicism would host comments from any source that could rationalize support in voting for a second presidential term for Obama.

Equally stunning is that comments from the likes of Steven Schneck advocating for and misrepresenting the facts of the Ryan budget are not vetted.

I would like to thank Bishop Robert C. Morlino for his remarks that “vice presidential candidate (Paul) Ryan is aware of Catholic social teaching and is very careful to fashion and form his conclusions in accord with the principles (of Catholic social justice).” From all I know about Paul Ryan, he is an outstanding example of what I think it means to be a Catholic.

Further, I commend my bishop, Bishop Earl Boyea, who, along with Archbishop Joseph Naumann, expressed concerns that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ criticism of the Ryan plan fueled perception that the bishops conference is partisan and constantly demanding more government spending. You think?

If we want to know what a welfare state with a debt crisis looks like, take a look at Greece, Spain and Italy, or closer to home, the states of California and Illinois. And, if we stay our current course, the United States.

This is what we always get when we ask government to do our acts of charity. Will we ever learn?

The necessary response, so obvious one ponders his inability to see it, to Msgr. Owen F. Campion’s “can’t we all get along at the Al Smith dinner” column is that when Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt sat down at that table, neither one supported the daily murder of 4,000 pre-born children, and neither one had launched a frontal attack on the religious liberty of the very people who had invited him. That, Msgr. Campion, is why we can’t all join the happy talk.

I’ve practiced nursing for more than 40 years, catechetics for about 60 years and received a doctoral equivalency about 30 years ago. I left all practice in Catholic hospitals when brain death started being accepted by them.

I knew in the 1990s that brain death was being medically accepted without any research in order to get vital organs for transplants! God help us, the living! Little chance for God to work his miracles these days!

Know this everyone: If the patient is pronounced brain dead, the only reason they’re kept on life support until surgery is because they want the organs functioning until removal. They’re afraid the organs will stop and then the patient is really dead and the desired organs useless.

When a patient is taken off a respirator, one of three things will happen: vital organs will slowly shut down — maybe in about an hour — when there is no longer spontaneous breathing, blood pressure and pulse; the patient will continue living for a time before dying; or the patient will get well.

Your 100th anniversary issue is terrific. My eyes are a little strained from trying to read all the fine print on those early editions, that’s how interesting I found them! This evening I went through every single page!

I have been a writer, columnist and editor so I can appreciate the dedication and effort that it took to sort through the broad amalgam of topics in any given year.

I heartily congratulate you and your staff on a job well done.

May God bless you and your staff for your ministry and for at least the next 100 years or until the second coming, whichever comes first.